Systems and methods for overriding crowd-sourced auto-skip commands based on user activity

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided herein for automatically overriding an auto-skip command embedded in a media asset annotation when a user profile indicates a preference for content that is to be auto-skipped. To this end, a media guidance application may play back a media asset to a user, and detect therein a skip annotation that corresponds to a portion of the media asset that is to be played back. The media guidance application may, in response to detecting the skip annotation, access metadata indicating content of the portion, compare the metadata to entries of a profile of the user, and determine whether the user prefers the content based on the comparing. if the user prefers the content, the media guidance application may refrain from executing a skip command indicated by the skip annotation.

BACKGROUND

As social media consumption and feedback becomes more prevalent betweenusers, aggregate feedback from many users has been used to determinepopular choices. For example, in related art, users are enabled toannotate media to automatically skip scenes (e.g., to fast forwardthrough a spoiler to ensure that a user does not accidentally see scenesthat might spoil a user that a user is simply browsing through). Guidingan experience by way of popular aggregate choices is known as“crowdsoucing.” Some users, however, would prefer to make decisions thatare counter to popular decisions, and may not wish to be guided bycrowdsourced data.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are provided herein for overriding crowdsourcedlogic based on user preferences. For example, if crowdsourcing indicatesthat a particular scene of a movie is boring and should be skipped, butthat a user would like that scene (e.g., because the user likes acharacter or actor in that scene), the systems and methods providedherein would ensure that the scene is not skipped and that the user'sviewing experience is uninterrupted.

To this end, in some aspects of the disclosure, control circuitry of auser equipment may execute a media guidance application that mayautomatically override an auto-skip command embedded in a media assetannotation when a user profile indicates a preference for content thatis to be auto-skipped. The media guidance application may play back amedia asset to a user (or cause a media asset to be played back to auser), and may detect, during playback of the media asset, a skipannotation that corresponds to a portion of the media asset that is tobe played back at a present time. For example, crowdsourced data may betransmitted with the media asset that indicates that users generallyskip a scene that has just been, or is about to, be reached.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetecting the skip annotation, may access metadata indicating content ofthe portion. For example, the metadata may indicate given objects,entities (e.g., actors or characters), and the like that are present ina scene of the media asset. The media guidance application may thencompare the metadata to entries of a profile of the user (e.g., todetermine whether the profile indicates that a user likes an actor orcharacter of a scene that is being played back).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinewhether the user prefers the content based on the comparing. Forexample, if an episode of Seinfeld, which is a sitcom starring acharacter named Kramer, is playing back, and the user prefers seeing allscenes where Kramer is present, the media guidance application maydetermine that the user prefers the content of the scene thatcrowdsourcing indicates is to be skipped.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the user prefersthe content, the media guidance application may refrain from executing askip command indicated by the skip annotation. For example, the mediaguidance application may refrain from skipping a scene that is indicatedas boring by crowdsourcing because the scene includes Kramer, andbecause the user likes all scenes with Kramer.

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application is playing backthe media asset, the media guidance application may receive the mediaasset with auxiliary data. For example, the media asset may be receivedwith data that indicates information about a given portion of the mediaasset, such as actors who are present in a scene, historical facts aboutwhere the scene was filmed, objects within the scene that are availablefor purchase, and any other auxiliary data. The media guidanceapplication may, when detecting the skip annotation, detect the skipannotation within the auxiliary data. For example, the auxiliaryinformation may indicate that the given portion of the media asset is tobe skipped.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when detecting theskip annotation, may access a database comprising skip annotationscorresponding to a plurality of playback positions of the media asset.For example, the media guidance application may access a database thatcompiles crowdsourced data that relates to media assets, including whichmedia a crowd tends to skip (e.g., boring portions, spoilers, and thelike). The media guidance application may determine that a playbackposition of the plurality of playback positions is being played back tothe user during the playing back of the media asset (e.g., that aposition that a crowd agrees is to be skipped is being played back), andmay, in response to determining that the playback position is beingplayed back, detect the skip annotation.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive feedbackfrom a plurality of users that indicates that a given playback positionof the media asset should be skipped (e.g., crowdsourced data). Themedia guidance application may determine whether a threshold amount offeedback has been received. For example, the media guidance applicationmay require that enough people have indicated that a scene is boring, orthat the scene contains a spoiler, for it to have a high enoughconfidence level that a scene in fact is objectively boring or aspoiler, and thus may require a threshold. The media guidanceapplication, in response to determining that the threshold amount offeedback has been received, may then add the given playback position tothe plurality of playback positions.

In some embodiments, when determining whether the user prefers thecontent based on the comparing, the media guidance application maydetermine whether the metadata indicates that an entity that isreflected in an entry of the profile of the user is present in the mediaasset at the present time. For example, as described in the foregoing,the media guidance application may determine whether an actor orcharacter that the user prefers is within the scene. The media guidanceapplication may refrain from skipping a portion of a media asset,notwithstanding that crowdsourcing indicates that the portion should beskipped, if such an actor or character is within the scene.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the user prefers the content, execute a skip commandindicated by the skip annotation. For example, the media guidanceapplication may skip a scene of a movie based on crowdsourced data. Themedia guidance application may then detect that a user has reversed theskip command (e.g., by selecting an “unskip” option or by rewinding),and may update the profile to reflect that the user has reversed theskip command.

In some embodiments, after the user has reversed the skip command, themedia guidance application may play back the media asset at a timesubsequent to the present time, detect that the content is again beingplayed back, and, based on the updating of the profile, may refrain fromskipping the content despite the skip annotation.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetecting that the user has reversed the skip command, may update themetadata. In some embodiments, when updating the metadata, the mediaguidance application may determine whether a threshold number of peoplehave reversed the skip command. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether enough people no longer wish to skip agiven scene. The media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the threshold number of people have reversed the skipcommand, delete the skip annotation, thus avoiding an automatic skipcommand from occurring in the future.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetermining that the user prefers the content, may execute the skipcommand (e.g., because crowdsourcing indicates that a scene is to beskipped). The media guidance application may detect that the user haspartially reversed the executed skip command by rewinding to anintermediate point within the portion (e.g., by seeking backward throughsome, but not all, content that was skipped. The media guidanceapplication may then update the profile to reflect a preference forcontent between the intermediate point and the end of the portion. Forexample, the media guidance application may learn of actors who arepresent between the intermediate point and the end of the portion andupdate the profile to reflect a preference for those actors.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a user interface that mayinclude a display of a media asset and a progress indicator, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for overriding acrowdsourced indication to skip a portion of a media asset when aprofile indicates that a user viewing the media asset would enjoy theportion, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether a user would sufficiently enjoy a portion of a media asset thatcrowdsourcing should be skipped in order to determine whether tooverride the crowdsourced indication, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative embodiment of a user interface that mayinclude a display of a media asset and a progress indicator, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. FIG. 1 includes userequipment 100. User equipment 100 may include control circuitry, whichmay execute a media guidance application. The functionality of userequipment, control circuitry, and media guidance applications aredescribed in further detail below at least with reference to FIGS. 2-5.

FIG. 1 also includes media asset 102. In the illustrative example ofFIG. 1, media asset 102 is an episode of the television sitcom Seinfeld.Media asset 102, however, may be any media asset as described below withreference to FIGS. 2-5. FIG. 1 also includes progress bar 104 and trickplay indicator 106. Progress bar 104 may indicate any progress relevantto media asset 102, such as how much of media asset 102 has beenconsumed, how much of media asset 102 has been downloaded or buffered,how much of media asset 102 has been paused, and the like.

Trick play indicator 106 may indicate trick play activity, such asactivity that alters playback of a media asset, like a fast-forward,rewind, or skip operation. In some embodiments, as will be discussed infurther detail below, a media guidance application may be programmed toautomatically skip one or more portions of media asset 102. Trick playindicator 106 may indicate portions the one or more portions that are tobe skipped. These indications may be visually distinct from otherindications of trick play indicator 106 that show user-initiated trickplay functions.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application executed by thecontrol circuitry of user equipment 100 may automatically override anauto-skip command embedded in a media asset annotation when a userprofile indicates a preference for content that is to be auto-skipped.The term “auto-skip command” (or variations thereof) is a commandexecuted by the media guidance application when an annotation relatingto a portion of a media asset indicates that the portion of the mediaasset is to be skipped. The term “annotation” as used herein refers toanything that may give rise to a command that corresponds to a portionto a media asset. Annotations may be provided by users (e.g., a user mayrate a scene of a movie poorly) or by editors (e.g., an editor may addmetadata indicating that an actor, product, or other entity relates to agiven media asset portion). Annotations and related trick playfunctionality are discussed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2013/0311575, published on Nov. 21, 2013, and U.S. Patent ApplicationPublication No. 2013/0294755, published on Nov. 7, 2013, each of whichare hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may play back mediaasset 102 to a user, or may cause media asset 102 to be played back to auser. The manner in which media assets, such as media asset 102, may beaccessed and played back is described further below with reference toFIGS. 2-5. During playback of media asset 102, the media guidanceapplication may detect a skip annotation that corresponds to a portionof the media asset that is to be played back at a present time. The term“skip annotation” refers to an annotation that, when detected, willtrigger a command for the portion of media asset 102 to be skipped over.For example, the skip annotation may indicate a range of times of mediaasset 102 to be skipped.

Skip annotations, or any annotations, as described above, may beindicated in crowdsourced data. Crowdsourcing annotations are describedin U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0311575, published onNov. 21, 2013, and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0294755,published on Nov. 7, 2013, which were mentioned in the foregoing andincorporated by reference. The crowdsourced data may be retrieved oraccessed in any number of ways. For example, crowdsourced data may betransmitted with media asset 102 (e.g., in a vertical blanking interval,or by way of a network packet). In some embodiments, crowdsourced datamay be accessed separately from the media asset. For example, memory ofuser equipment 100 (the memory is described in further detail withreference to FIGS. 2-5) may include a database entry with crowdsourceddata. As another example, a third party server or database may storeinformation about crowdsourced data including annotations relating tomedia asset 102, and the media guidance application of user equipment100 may access the crowdsourced data in response to the media guidanceapplication beginning playback of media asset 102.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may cause trick playindicator 106 of progress bar 104 to occur at a time when a portion ofmedia asset 102 is skipped. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may cause trick play indicator 106 of progress bar 104 topopulate with portions of media asset 102 that are to be skipped priorto a user progressing to a part of media asset 102 that is to beskipped. Thus, as is indicated in progress bar 104, there may bemultiple trick play indicators 106 pre-populated so that a user can seein advance what will be skipped. The media guidance application maydetect a user interaction with a progress indicator 106 (e.g., by way ofa user input interface, which is described further below with respect toFIGS. 2-5), and may responsively either cancel the skip operation inadvance, or may provide the user with further information. The furtherinformation may include information about what plot points are in theportion of media asset 102 are to be skipped, what actors or objects arein that portion, and the like. The media guidance application mayretrieve the further information from a database, such as a mediacontent source or a media guidance data source, which is described infurther detail below with reference to FIGS. 2-5, and may generate fordisplay the information in response to the interaction. As an example,the interaction may be the user tapping trick play indicator 106 with afinger, or hovering a cursor over trick play indicator 106.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetecting the skip annotation, may access metadata indicating content ofthe portion. The metadata may be stored locally in the memory of userequipment 100, or may be stored at a different user equipment accessibleto user equipment 100, or may be stored at a remote database such as thebelow-described media content source or media guidance data source. Themetadata may alternatively be transmitted with media asset 102 asdescribed above. In some embodiments, the metadata may indicate givenobjects, entities (e.g., actors or characters), and the like that arepresent in a portion of media asset 102. For example, the metadata maybe from an entry of a data table that maps attributes of media asset 102to times or time ranges in which the attributes occur. Thus, themetadata may reflect any object, actor, entity, trivia, and the likethat relates to any given portion of media asset 102.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may then compare themetadata of media asset 102 to entries of a profile of the user. Theprofile of the user may be stored in any location referenced withrespect to the metadata. User profiles are described in further detailwith respect to FIGS. 2-5 below. Entries of the profile of the user mayindicate preferences of a user, such as actors that a user favors,genres of scenes of media assets that the user favors (e.g., preferscomedy to action), and any other preference that a user may have. Themedia guidance application may perform the comparison in order to learnwhether an attribute of a portion of media asset 102 that is to beskipped due to a skip annotation corresponds to an attribute that theuser prefers. For example, if media asset 102 is an episode of Seinfeld,which is a sitcom starring a character named Kramer, and the mediaguidance application determines, from the user profile, that the userprefers seeing all scenes where Kramer is present, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the user prefers the content of the scenethat crowdsourcing indicates is to be skipped. Thus, media guidanceapplication is enabled to determine whether a user's preferences arecounter to that of the larger crowd that is supplying the annotations.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the user prefersthe content, the media guidance application may refrain from executing askip command indicated by the skip annotation. For example, the mediaguidance application may refrain from skipping a scene that is indicatedas boring by crowdsourcing because the scene includes Kramer, and theuser prefers Kramer. The media guidance application may perform thisrefraining in real-time (e.g., by performing the comparison as the skipannotation is reached). Real-time analysis may be advantageous where themetadata is transmitted with the media asset. The media guidanceapplication may also perform this refraining ahead of time (e.g., maydetermine at the start of playback of media asset 102, or even sooner,which skip annotations should be ignored in favor of user preferences).

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application determines thata skip annotation is to be ignored in favor of user preferences, themedia guidance application may delete trick play indicator 106 fromprogress bar 104. In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay determine whether a skip annotation is to be ignored in favor ofuser preferences if a user interacts (in the manner described above)with a trick play indicator 106.

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application is playing backthe media asset, the media guidance application may receive the mediaasset with auxiliary data. For example, the metadata corresponding tomedia asset 102 may be received in an auxiliary data stream with otherdata about media asset 102. The auxiliary data stream may be any datastream received concurrently with media asset 102 (e.g., a verticalblanking interval data stream or a data stream received over anauxiliary channel such as a network channel). The media guidanceapplication may, when detecting the skip annotation, detect the skipannotation within the auxiliary data. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine (e.g., in real-time) that the auxiliaryinformation indicates that the given portion of the media asset is to beskipped.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, when detecting theskip annotation, may access a database comprising skip annotationscorresponding to a plurality of playback positions of the media asset.For example, a data table may be populated at any place that wasdescribed above where metadata may be stored, and the data table mayindicate portions of a media asset that a crowd indicates should beskipped. The media guidance application may access this data table todetermine whether any given portion of a media asset is to be skipped.The data table may be dynamically updated as the crowd's decisionsdevelop and evolve and more input from a crowd is received.

In some embodiments, when the media guidance application (or a remoteserver that manages a data table for a crowd's reaction to media asset102) receives feedback from a plurality of users (the crowd) thatindicates that a given playback position of the media asset should beskipped (e.g., crowdsourced data), the media guidance application maydetermine whether a threshold amount of feedback has been received. Forexample, the media guidance application may require that enough peoplehave indicated that a scene is boring or a spoiler for it to have a highenough confidence level that a scene in fact is objectively boring or aspoiler. The media guidance application, in response to determining thatthe threshold amount of feedback has been received, may then add thegiven playback position to the plurality of playback positions, thuscausing a corresponding portion of media asset 102.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the user prefers the content, or in response todetermining that the user does not prefer the content, execute a skipcommand indicated by the skip annotation. For example, the mediaguidance application may skip a scene of a movie based on theabove-described crowdsourced data. The media guidance application maythen detect that a user has reversed the skip command (e.g., byselecting an “unskip” option or by rewinding), and may update theprofile to reflect that the user has reversed the skip command. Forexample, the media guidance application may detect the attributes of theunskipped portion of media asset 102 and may update the profile toaccount for a preference toward those attributes.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, prior toupdating the profile of the user, in response to detecting a reversal ofa skip command, query the user as to why the user reversed the skipcommand. For example, the query may leverage metadata corresponding tothe skipped portion and ask the user which attribute caused the user tounskip the portion. The attributes may be listed, and may beindividually selectable. The query may appear on user equipment 100 or adifferent user equipment (such as a smart phone or tablet, using a pushnotification).

In some embodiments, after the user has reversed the skip command, themedia guidance application may play back media asset 102 at a timesubsequent to the present time (e.g., as a re-run, or the media guidanceapplication may re-play media asset 102 when a user requests it beplayed back again). The media guidance application may detect that thecontent is again being played back, and, based on the updating of theprofile, refrain from skipping the content despite the skip annotation.Thus, the media guidance application may detect in a future portion ofmedia asset 102 that a preferred attribute from the unskipped portionhas recurred in a portion that the crowd has again suggested be skipped,and refrain from skipping that portion.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetecting that the user has reversed the skip command, may update themetadata. In some embodiments, when updating the metadata, the mediaguidance application may determine whether a threshold number of peoplehave reversed the skip command. For example, if a threshold number ofpeople who must skip a portion of a media asset is 10,000, and exactly10,000 had skipped the portion, and then the user unskipped the portion,the number of people who had skipped may be reduced to 9,999 which isbelow the threshold. This number may be reduced for every user who hasreversed the skip command. Alternatively, the media guidance applicationmay separately track the number of people who have reversed the skipcommand, and override the crowd of people who caused the skip command tooccur in the first place if a threshold number of people have reversedthe skip command. The media guidance application may, in response todetermining that the threshold number of people have reversed the skipcommand, delete the skip annotation, thus avoiding an automatic skipcommand from occurring in the future.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, in response todetermining that the user prefers the content, may execute the skipcommand (e.g., because crowdsourcing indicates that a scene is to beskipped). The media guidance application may detect that the user haspartially reversed the executed skip command by rewinding to anintermediate point within the portion (e.g., by seeking backward throughsome, but not all, content that was skipped). The media guidanceapplication may then update the profile to reflect a preference forcontent between the intermediate point and the end of the portion (e.g.,by leveraging attributes reflected by metadata corresponding to contentof media asset 102 between the intermediate point and the end of theportion. For example, the media guidance application may learn of actorswho are present between the intermediate point and the end of theportion and update the profile to reflect a preference for those actors.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 2-3 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 300 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 308 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 314 and text portion 316.Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 314 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 404. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 404. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512. Communications with the content source 516 and media guidancedata source 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 withuser equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as throughcommunications network 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 6 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for overriding acrowdsourced indication to skip a portion of a media asset when aprofile indicates that a user viewing the media asset would enjoy theportion, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Process600 begins at 602, where a media guidance application (e.g., the mediaguidance application executed by control circuitry of user equipment100) may play back a media asset (e.g., media asset 102) to a user.

User equipment 100 may have the same functionalities described withrespect to user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,and/or wireless user communications device 506 above. The controlcircuitry of user equipment 100 may have the same functionality ofcontrol circuitry 404. The memory of user equipment 100 described abovemay have the same functionality of storage 408 described above. Whenuser equipment 100 plays back media asset 102, the user equipment mayleverage display 412 and speakers 414 to play back the video and audiocomponents, respectively, of media asset 102. Media asset 102 may beaccessed by way of media content source 516, which may communicate byway of communications network 514.

Process 600 may continue to 604, where the media guidance applicationmay detect, during playback of media asset 102, a skip annotation thatcorresponds to a portion of the media asset that is to be played back ata present time. The skip annotation may be received and/or detected inany manner described above. The skip annotation may be received frommedia content source 516 or from media guidance data source 518, both byway of communications network 514. Alternatively, the skip annotationmay be stored at storage 408 of user equipment 100 or any other userequipment.

Process 600 may continue to 606, where the media guidance applicationmay, in response to detecting the skip annotation, access metadataindicating content of the portion. The metadata and mechanisms foraccessing the metadata are described in the foregoing. The metadata maybe accessed from media content source 516, media guidance data source518, and/or storage 408 of user equipment 100 or any other userequipment.

Process 600 may continue to 608, where the media guidance applicationmay compare the metadata to entries of a profile of the user. Thiscomparison may be performed in any manner described in the foregoing.The profile may be stored at storage 408 of user equipment 100 (or anyother user equipment), or may be stored at media guidance data source518 or media content source 516, which may be accessed by way ofcommunications network 514.

Process 600 may continue to 610, where the media guidance applicationmay determine whether the user prefers the content based on thecomparing. This determination may be performed in any manner describedabove, and is fleshed out further below with respect to FIG. 7. Process600 may continue to 612, where, in response to determining that the userprefers the content, the media guidance application may refrain fromexecuting a skip command indicated by the skip annotation. Thus, mediaasset 102 will continue to play back as normal without a skip operationoccurring on the portion of the media asset.

FIG. 7 depicts an illustrative flowchart of a process for determiningwhether a user would sufficiently enjoy a portion of a media asset thatcrowdsourcing should be skipped in order to determine whether tooverride the crowdsourced indication, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. Process 700 begins at 702, where themedia guidance application (e.g., of user equipment 100) may identify,from the metadata, a plurality of entities that are present in contentof the media asset that is at a portion of the media asset indicated bythe skip annotation. This identification may be performed in any mannerdescribed above, such as using a reference table that notes each objectthat is in a frame of a video, or by using object recognition in theframe to individually determine an identity of each person/object in theframe.

Process 700 may continue to 704, where the media guidance applicationmay compare each entity of the plurality of entities to entities thatthe profile of the user indicates that the user prefers. For example, asdescribed above, the profile of the user of user equipment 102 mayindicate that the user prefers the character Kramer from the televisionsitcom Seinfeld. If media asset 102 is an episode of Seinfeld, and askip annotation corresponds to a scene with Kramer in it, the mediaguidance application would determine based on the comparison that theuser prefers an entity in the portion indicated by the skip annotation.

Process 700 may continue to 706, where the media guidance applicationmay determine whether a sufficient amount of entities of the pluralityof entities match entities of the profile. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine whether enough (e.g., a thresholdamount) characters, actors, or object that match entities of the profileare within the portion for the portion to be deemed worthwhile to theuser. The threshold may be set by the user, set by default settings, orbe dynamic and change based on how many entities a user enjoys must bein a scene for the user to enjoy the scene. Each entity may have acertain weight—if a profile reflects that a user prefers one characteror object to another, the preferred object may count more toward meetingthe threshold than the less preferred object or entity. As analternative, the media guidance application may determine whether anentity is within the portion for a long enough (e.g., threshold) periodof time. Again, the threshold period of time may be set by the user, bydefault settings, or dynamic based on the user profile. Entities may beweighted, and the weight may affect the threshold period of time. Forexample, if a user prefers two entities, but prefers one more than theother, the more preferred entity may require a shorter threshold ofpresence (e.g., 10 seconds) than the less preferred entity (1 minute)for the scene to be deemed worth not skipping despite the skipannotation.

Process 700 may continue to 708, where the media guidance applicationmay determine whether a sufficient amount of entities match (or whetheran entity is in the portion to be skipped for a sufficient amount oftime). If the answer is in the affirmative, process 700 may continue to710, where the media guidance application may refrain from executing theskip command indicated by the skip annotation. If the answer is in thenegative, the media guidance application may execute the skip commandindicated by the skip annotation.

It should be noted that processes 600-700 or any step thereof could beperformed on, or provided by, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 1 and4-5. For example, any of processes 600-700 may be executed by controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by control circuitry implemented onuser equipment 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5) in order to detect a skipannotation. In addition, one or more steps of processes 600-700 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of each of FIGS. 6-7may be used with any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition,the steps and descriptions described in relation to FIGS. 6-7 may bedone in alternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes ofthis disclosure. For example, each of these steps may be performed inany order or in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lagor increase the speed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should benoted that any of the devices or equipment discussed in relation toFIGS. 1 and 4-5 could be used to perform one or more of the steps inFIGS. 6-7.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer-usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer-usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM device, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer-readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, identifying entities within content may be performed, e.g., byprocessing circuitry 406 of FIG. 4. The processing circuitry, forinstance, may be a general purpose processor, a customized integratedcircuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)within user equipment 400, media content source 516, or media guidancedata source 518. For example, a profile, as described herein, may bestored in, and retrieved from, storage 408 of FIG. 4, or media guidancedata source 518 of FIG. 5. Furthermore, processing circuitry, or acomputer program, may update settings associated with a user, such asprofile settings, stored within storage 408 of FIG. 4 or media guidancedata source 518 of FIG. 5.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted, the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to,or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

While some portions of this disclosure may make reference to“convention” or “related art,” any such reference is merely for thepurpose of providing context to the invention(s) of the instantdisclosure, and does not form any admission as to what constitutes thestate of the art.

1-50. (canceled)
 51. A method for determining whether to execute a skipcommand embedded in a media asset annotation based on user preferencefor content that may be skipped, the method comprising: playing back amedia asset to a user; detecting, during playback of the media asset, afirst skip annotation that corresponds to a first portion of the mediaasset; in response to detecting the first skip annotation, executing afirst skip command indicated by the first skip annotation; detectingthat the user has reversed the first skip command; based on the userhaving reversed the first skip command, accessing metadata describingattributes of the first portion; detecting, during further playback ofthe media asset, a second skip annotation that corresponds to a secondportion of the media asset; in response to detecting the second skipannotation, accessing metadata describing attributes of the secondportion; determining whether the metadata describing the attributes ofthe second portion matches the metadata describing the attributes of thefirst portion; and based on determining that the metadata describing theattributes of the second portion matches the metadata describing theattributes of the first portion, refraining from executing a second skipcommand indicated by the second skip annotation.
 52. The method of claim51, further comprising, further based on the user having reversed thefirst skip command: updating metadata of a profile of the user toindicate that the user prefers the attributes of the first portion; andwherein determining whether the metadata of the second portion matchesthe metadata of the first portion comprises determining whether themetadata of the second portion matches the metadata of the profile ofthe user.
 53. The method of claim 51, wherein playing back the mediaasset comprises receiving the media asset with auxiliary data, andwherein detecting the first skip annotation comprises detecting thefirst skip annotation within the auxiliary data.
 54. The method of claim53, wherein detecting the second skip annotation comprises detecting thesecond skip annotation within the auxiliary data.
 55. The method ofclaim 51, wherein detecting the first skip annotation comprises:accessing a database comprising skip annotations corresponding to aplurality of playback positions of the media asset; determining that aplayback position of the plurality of playback positions has beenreached during the playing back of the media asset; and in response todetermining that the playback position has been reached, detecting thefirst skip annotation.
 56. The method of claim 55, further comprising:receiving feedback from a plurality of users that indicates that a givenplayback position of the media asset should be skipped; determiningwhether a threshold amount of feedback has been received; and inresponse to determining that the threshold amount of feedback has beenreceived, adding the given playback position to the plurality ofplayback positions.
 57. The method of claim 56, further comprising,further based on detecting that the user has reversed the first skipcommand: determining whether a threshold number of people have reversedthe first skip command; and based on determining that the thresholdnumber of people have reversed the skip command, deleting the skipannotation.
 58. The method of claim 51, wherein determining whether themetadata of the second portion matches the metadata of the first portioncomprises determining whether a first attribute of the attributes of thefirst portion matches a second attribute of the attributes of the secondportion.
 59. The method of claim 51, wherein detecting that the user hasreversed the first skip command comprises detecting that the user haspartially reversed the first skip command by rewinding to anintermediate point within the first portion.
 60. The method of claim 59,wherein accessing the metadata describing the attributes of the firstportion comprises accessing metadata describing attributes of a thirdportion between the intermediate point and the end of the first portion.61. A system for determining whether to execute a skip command embeddedin a media asset annotation based on user preference for content thatmay be skipped, the system comprising: communications circuitry; andcontrol circuitry configured to: play back a media asset to a user;detect, during playback of the media asset, a first skip annotation thatcorresponds to a first portion of the media asset; in response todetecting the first skip annotation, execute a first skip commandindicated by the first skip annotation; detect that the user hasreversed the first skip command; based on the user having reversed thefirst skip command, access metadata describing attributes of the firstportion; detect, during further playback of the media asset, a secondskip annotation that corresponds to a second portion of the media asset;in response to detecting the second skip annotation, access metadatadescribing attributes of the second portion; determine whether themetadata describing the attributes of the second portion matches themetadata describing the attributes of the first portion; and based ondetermining that the metadata describing the attributes of the secondportion matches the metadata describing the attributes of the firstportion, refrain from executing a second skip command indicated by thesecond skip annotation.
 62. The system of claim 61, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, further based on the user havingreversed the first skip command, to: update metadata of a profile of theuser to indicate that the user prefers the attributes of the firstportion; and wherein the control circuitry is further configured, whendetermining whether the metadata of the second portion matches themetadata of the first portion, to determine whether the metadata of thesecond portion matches the metadata of the profile of the user.
 63. Thesystem of claim 61, wherein the control circuitry is further configured,when playing back the media asset, to receive the media asset withauxiliary data, and wherein the control circuitry is further configured,when detecting the first skip annotation, to detect the first skipannotation within the auxiliary data.
 64. The system of claim 63,wherein the control circuitry is further configured, when detecting thesecond skip annotation, to detect the second skip annotation within theauxiliary data.
 65. The system of claim 61, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when detecting the first skipannotation, to: access a database comprising skip annotationscorresponding to a plurality of playback positions of the media asset;determine that a playback position of the plurality of playbackpositions has been reached during the playing back of the media asset;and in response to determining that the playback position has beenreached, detect the first skip annotation.
 66. The system of claim 65,wherein the control circuitry is further configured to: receive feedbackfrom a plurality of users that indicates that a given playback positionof the media asset should be skipped; determine whether a thresholdamount of feedback has been received; and in response to determiningthat the threshold amount of feedback has been received, add the givenplayback position to the plurality of playback positions.
 67. The systemof claim 66, wherein the control circuitry is further configured,further based on detecting that the user has reversed the first skipcommand, to: determine whether a threshold number of people havereversed the first skip command; and in response to determining that thethreshold number of people have reversed the skip command, delete theskip annotation.
 68. The system of claim 61, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured, when determining whether the metadataof the second portion matches the metadata of the first portion, todetermine whether a first attribute of the attributes of the firstportion matches a second attribute of the attributes of the secondportion.
 69. The system of claim 61, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured, when detecting that the user has reversed the firstskip command, to detect that the user has partially reversed the firstskip command by rewinding to an intermediate point within the firstportion.
 70. The system of claim 69, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured, when accessing the metadata describing theattributes of the first portion, to access metadata describingattributes of a third portion between the intermediate point and the endof the first portion.